Michele Boldrin

Jeffrey Tucker interviews Michele Boldrin, co-author (with David K. Levine) of the book Against Intellectual Monopoly.

Was James Watt’s patent of the steam engine a crucial incentive needed to trigger his inventive genius, as the traditional history suggests? Or did his use of the legal system to inhibit competition set back the Industrial Revolution by a decade or two? Here is a case study in how “intellectual property rights” do grave damage to the market economy.